Teaching

“Just give up already.” “I’m not interested in any of this.” “I don’t have time for this.” “You just woke me up from a really good nap.” These are some of the comments I heard during my volunteer shifts calling voters, asking them to vote Yes on Amendment 73, an education funding solution which Colorado students and teachers desperately need.

Colorado schools are struggling in a bad way. For being in one of the most progressive, healthy, thriving, prosperous states in the country, our schools’ resources and teachers’ wages are sorely stuck in the past. We are losing good teachers. I personally left the country to teach for two years so I could make a little money as a teacher, and now I’m back calling on you and your support to save Colorado’s education system. There’s a lot more we need to save after this, so let me make this quick.

I could tell you story after story about colleagues and friends, bachelor-degree-or-higher-holding, full-time/salaried professionals who’ve had to work two part-time jobs on top of their career to make enough money, but you’ve already heard those stories. I could tell you that

But you don’t need me to tell you all of that.

“Just give up already.” “I’m not interested in any of this.” “I don’t have time for this.” “You just woke me up from a really good nap.” are the resounding sentiments two days before Election Day when Coloradans have the opportunity to pass a bill which will change the structure of funding in Colorado in a critical way.

Critics say it’s not a perfect solution, and I agree.

It’s kind of like this: ⅕ of the kids in the state have warm winter coats, and the other ⅘ do not, but winter is coming, and a bunch of kids are going to freeze if we do nothing. Amendment 73 is like saying, either everyone gets a new winter coat, or no one does!

Is that really fair?

No.

The kids who already have coats don’t need another coat.

But the only way ANYONE gets a coat is if everyone gets a coat.

And we’re going to take a little more from the adults who have the warmest coats because our students and teachers are all freezing to death out here, and no one’s been able to come up with a better solution for it. But we need to pass this, because a lot of people need the damn coats.

So, I’m sorry you were napping, but saving our future is something I’d get up from a nap for any day of the year.

Today, I call out to you for your collective strength. You are all my hive, without whom I could not be where I am today.

I would give away all of my money, all of my possessions, everything, if it would guarantee that all people after me, every single woman and man, would have an equal say. I would honestly give my life for that. Millions of people already have given their lives, yet without resulting in the ideal We promise: Liberty and justice for all….Land of the free. Still, we do not honor our word; Consider this my first public taking of the knee.

There are people around the U.S. right now being denied from voting. Democracy is dying. We are not doing this properly. Come on, US! In some countries, everyone must vote; in Brazil if a person doesn’t vote, (they may abstain only by appearing on election day and reporting it on their ballot) they endure a small fine and are ineligible for government employment.

Yet here, in a country founded by THE PEOPLE for THE PEOPLE, voter suppression is a very real and systemic problem. I would give my life if it meant putting a stop to that problem once and for all. For Native Americans, for Black people and People of Color, for elderly people, for criminals, everyone should have ease of access to the polls.

I know I cannot fix this problem alone, and nor can it be fixed before this upcoming election. Nothing is immediate. This is why I’m reaching out. I can’t fix this, nor any of the other problems, alone. But I can activate, empower, and encourage other women to raise themselves up out of the shadows so that together we may reclaim our space, and bring up this nation. (But only if all women do this together. White, Black, Indigenous, all Women of Color, we Women must do it together. White Women: we’ve GOT to do better at supporting non-white women.)

Right now, my plate is full with many amazing learning opportunities and giving endeavors. I am investing my time in mastering these learnings so that I may be a better ally, advocate, and ancestor.

If you are able to, please invest in me. Send me a note of encouragement. Invite me over for a meal or tea. Come out on your day off and volunteer with me. Refer me to your friends and neighbors to hire me for English tutoring or babysitting or dog-sitting jobs so I may continue to have some flexible income. Make an online donation to my gofundme page. OR simply send me a good thought. I’m sending you one, right now.

To all the strong women before me, with me, and after me: Thank you. I love you.

They say about riding bikes, you never forget, but what if you’re 31 and never really learned in the first place? And what if the bike has 24 gears?! Eek!

It’s one thing to pedal up and down mostly straight, flat roads, but we’re not in Weldona anymore. Navigating 24 gears in San Diego county is a whole different animal. But, this is the Tour of Hope, after all, so let’s remain hopeful!

I will start by saying Z is way stronger than I am. She’s been running and exercising regularly for most of her adult life. Me? My exercise comes in the form of need-inspired walking, sporadic stationary biking (no shifting required), the occasional strength circuit, periodic bouts of yoga, and isolated incidents of bedroom calisthenics. My quads and hammies are not up for all this pedaling, but they’re getting there!

We’re making rookie mistakes, for sure, as we cruise up and down the hills in La Mesa. Accidentally going up hill in high gear, not shifting down soon enough before the hill, skipping gears when we don’t mean to. Still trying to figure out the trick in timing to take that sweet momentum off the hill up the next one while being in the best gear….not quite there yet.

So far, an 8-mile round trip is the longest ride we’ve done, and it truly filled us with hope. I took my time on the hills, was patient with myself, and never had to walk the bike, so that’s a success! It’s still a long way to go before we head out to a powwow 140 miles away next month, but we’re going to make it.

Despite the unforeseen plot twist, we are still planning to attend the upcoming powwows around San Diego and LA. We will volunteer at these traditional events to gain a better understanding of each community and seek input from the elders and other community leaders about how our program can help meet their needs. This will be invaluable experience to inform our program development.

Additionally, I begin my own self-defense training tomorrow! Z is already a trained instructor, but I will be investing my time in learning combination martial arts, defense-based kickboxing, and whatever else I can fit into my schedule next to the bike training.

Something else we are working on is finding a piece of land for a workshop space. Or rather a person who owns land they’d like an office and garden on. We will build a small, sustainable, office/living space from reclaimed materials, complete with a rainwater filtration system and garden and compost system, if they like, which we will build, maintain, and leave the landowner with once we no longer need it…we just need someone in San Diego with the right space and the interest and willingness to let us work there for no exchange of money. Please let my know if you are or know of such a person.

So, I’m super hopeful about that, and look forward to building a tiny office in the near future!

It turns out that starting your own non-profit/service-based program is a lot like learning to ride a bike!

When I left the U.S. two years ago, I thought it was very possible that I would not return for many years. I had my eyes set on Cambodia to help educate and empower women there.

I guess I didn’t see then what I see so clearly now, that the people in the U.S. need my help first.

After years of working on my own self-love and self-empowerment, I feel stronger than ever that I have to help empower other women, and continue to empower teenagers, to use their voices and work to make this world the best possible place for all living beings. I want to fight for women’s rights and access to education and equality all around the world, but I can only do that once I know my own country, and all of its people, are strong.

Therefore, I have decided to take a break from the traditional high school English literature and composition teaching role and put my energy into empowering women and teenagers on Native American reservations around the U.S. In doing so I hope to gain the perspective I need to make a long term impact on the world of education and women’s rights.

For the next leg of my journey, I will travel around the U.S. with my best friend, Lindsey, to volunteer our time to the Natives on various reservations (to be determined). After Lindsey joined the natives in their important work at the Standing Rock protest in 2016, she has become more and more entrenched in the work and missions of the Natives, and I am excited to join her in working to support this community.

Lindsey and I believe that a major part to self-love and independence is confidence and strength of mind and body. She is a self-defense trainer with an amazing ability to connect with people and know just what she can do to help them. She and I are going to do whatever we can to empower Native women and teens on the Reservations.

I don’t yet know exactly what my role is going to be there, but I can see myself doing many things. Volunteering at the schools, offering after school programs like drawing and cooking and practices in mindfulness, and supporting the self-defense training however I can (until I also become trained) are things I am looking forward to. I will learn everything I can to best be able to serve the needs of these communities as I get to know them.

And, as with all great tasks, I am going to need the help of my communities, my family and friends and fellow peacemakers to be successful.

I am hosting a fundraiser here in Sao Paulo on June 9th. I will be donating all of my artworks, on which people can make a bid to purchase. It will be a silent auction, of which all proceeds will go towards this self-love and self-defense mission. I will use the money to buy supplies, food, and transportation around the U.S. as I venture from place to place.

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If you live in the states but would like to make a contribution to my journey, you can make a private donation on my GoFundMe page. I will also post a link to my artworks in case any of you really love a piece and want to have it shipped to you.

I still have every intention of making it to Cambodia someday to teach and/or volunteer, but I have realized that serving my own country is my priority right now, and I am honored to be able to return home and begin this work very soon!

When was the last time you gave yourself the same amount of time and consideration as you give to things you watch or read on the internet or TV?

I ask you this because of something that happened at my job a couple of months ago. I teach IB Lang. and Lit. at a private international school, though this is an assignment I also used to assign when I taught in public schools in Colorado, and will continue to assign when I return to public school teaching.

I assigned my 11th graders to analyze a poem to find its meaning, a skill they’d been working on for several weeks; each day they met the challenge with a lot of discomfort, as most of us did and still do when staring into the dark, blood-thirsty eyes of a poem. They don’t see how much they’ve improved at thinking critically this year. Although they are totally capable of completing the task, it was challenging, and it was frustrating. So what did they do?

More than a few opened their laptops. But instead of opening their documents of literary terms, steps to take for critical textual analysis, a dictionary, or any of the other thinking tools they are welcome to use– they began looking up interpretations of the poem online.

And while I wryly quipped at them “I Google, therefore I know?” and asked them to put their computers away, it left me thinking about how much easier it is for students to cheat today than ever before, and how I didn’t take full advantage of that “teachable moment” as we like to call it in the education industry.

Never before in history were there so many ethical issues with the technology we had access to. There’s not a lot of damage one can do with a plow, for example….well, not without considerable effort. Same is true of sliced bread. Or a wrist watch. Sure, the printing press made propaganda more prolific, telephones paved the way for prank callers, and we couldn’t have car accidents if it weren’t for cars, but I think we can all agree that these inventions increased production and success, and overall are benchmarks of progress.

However, does progress have a limit? Is it possible to go too far? Is there a point when progress fails us? Or is it just that our progress is somehow clouded by our lack of ethics and morals? Where do we draw the line between being able to do something, and actually doing it?

It seems to me that technology advanced much too quickly, faster than our ethics. Of course there are many good things about all of the information available through the world wide web. Just one example is how women around the world have begun to fight for civil rights since getting a glimpse of how their lives could be if they were allowed to earn an education, to work, to vote, etc. Knowledge is incredibly empowering, but has the pendulum swung too far? Has the overabundance of information (not to mention games and other endless stimuli) become an obstacle to learning, instead of a tool? With the abundance of crappy information out there, it’s even more important to think about what we read, see, hear. To question it and not just accept it.

Did we make a mistake by allowing people access to so much information or was our only mistake in not teaching people how to effectively use the information? If “Knowledge is power”, and “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”, did we accidentally unleash doom upon the human race by giving them so much access to knowledge? Of course, if everything on the internet was just unbiased facts and clearly labeled opinions, maybe we would have been able to deal with it more ethically. But since we all know that isn’t the case, I am left to worry. Is having free access to other people’s thoughts causing us to stop thinking for ourselves? Has it made us unwilling to spend the time and energy thinking for ourselves, or are we unable?

Technology and power are really very similar. And just as Eric Liu states about power, technology is not inherently good or bad, either, but people need to learn to manage it and use it responsibly. As much as a person uses technology to do their work (including school work) more efficiently, the more , I believe, he needs to shut it off when he isn’t working. When a person works online, reads online, communicates online, entertains herself online, socializes online, orders food online, and manages her health online, maybe that’s too much online time.

What will it take to make people understand that we are destroying ourselves? What will it take for people to truly see that the most important tool we have is our ability to think, and that we don’t need others to do it for us? That we are hurting ourselves by letting technology do too much for us?

We’ve gotten to a place in this society where people are uncomfortable with being alone with their own thoughts. We’ve been conditioned to believe we need to maintain constant contact with the world and end up forgetting about our planet. We have given away our power by letting others do our thinking for us. Eric Liu, author of “How to get power” and Ted-talk speaker claims that too many people are illiterate in power, (civics, especially). I propose that it goes even further than that: We have become a society illiterate in thinking. The more that “text” has become a part of our lives–the more ideas are placed in front of us–the less we have continued to think. Now, that doesn’t mean I want to go back in time and prevent the invention of the printing press. No, I’m not talking about going backwards, I’m just advocating for more time looking up and looking inward. Don’t believe me? Spend one day–just one 8-hour period–without text. Without a book, without technology, without music, without billboards, without your cell phone. Without any text of any kind. Just you and your thoughts. Explore your ideas. Exercise your thinking. Then come back and tell me if you thought more or less than in a typical day.

Our brain, like a muscle, needs exercise, and we’re not giving it that when we sit in front of the tv or internet thoughtlessly watching videos.

I wonder, did more than a couple of my students even understand my allusion that day when I wryly posed: “I Google, therefore I know?”

Again, I’m not saying that we need to return to the past and stop using the internet. I hope that we continue to have internet for a long time but only if we use it responsibly. I have caught many students plagiarising texts online in my eight years of teaching. And according to a survey posted on plagiarism.org, “One out of three high school students admitted that they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment.” When I asked students recently, after sharing this essay with them, why so many students cheat, they said that it’s because teachers ask too much of them without providing adequate time to complete it, as though the increase to access of information has translated to doing more, faster. I don’t deny that. I have seen it, and I know I’ve been guilty of it, too, when I’m under pressure from the state curriculum to get through so much content in such a short amount of time with students who aren’t reading and writing at grade level. Because students can work at home more easily, we keep asking them to do it more and more (at the high school and college level–there’s actually a trend moving away from assigning any homework at the elementary level), but we aren’t teaching the work habits and ethics necessary to maintain an ethical society. It’s not just happening in school, either; We as a society keep working more and more and never putting down our phones and computers because our bosses are also asking for more from us, despite research that shows “that productivity and long work hours do not go hand in hand,” according to a study cited by Rutger Bragman in an article on Ted.

Personally, I’ve made some adjustments to my teaching practices since that conversation with my students, but I’m more impassioned now than ever to do whatever I can to change our failing system of education. If you’re unsure why plagiarism is such a big deal, well, let me ask you this: Would you steal money from someone? Money that he worked hard to earn doing something that you are also capable of doing? They don’t say “A penny for your thoughts,” and “a million-dollar idea,” for no reason. Thinking is hard work and people deserve to be recognized for their hard work. It’s the respectful and responsible thing to do. Let’s keep building off of each other’s ideas to keep advancing society. Let’s keep thinking. Let’s take back our power!

The truth is, thinking for yourself isn’t something you have to do too much anymore, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.

Those dearest to me often call me Bean, or Jilly Bean. It has always been a term of endearment. A sign of love.

This weekend, on Saturday, Jan. 21st, it became even more than that to me. As I scrolled through my facebook feed looking at pictures of all the women and men marching for women’s rights–rights the 45th president is threatening the nation with revoking, rights like affordable health care, funding for Planned Parenthood,domestic violence programs, and safe abortions–I came across a quote: “They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds” (quote by Dinos Christianopoulos).

These two simple sentences hit me like a ray of sunshine after a gentle rainstorm–they warmed my body like a perfectly heated bath. In this moment, Bean became not just a name my family calls me, but a symbol for who I am. This quote spoke to me so loudly because I, too, have experienced the weight of being buried, and now I also know the relief and freedom of sprouting.

For a while, I let that weight settle over me, resigning myself to darkness and unhappiness, pretending things were fine when really I could barely breathe.

I have been doing a lot of reflecting over that time in my life when I was most unhappy and about what eventually allowed me to break free from those circumstances, advice I plan to share with others soon; I have set new intentions for my life, and big goals for my future. On this day, this quote confirmed for me that I really am going to make it.

The old me, the one who felt helpless and lacked control of her own life, she is dead and buried now. She left behind some scars, but she left many more lessons, and she left me stronger than ever, ready to sprout into a new, strong, powerful life force.

The old me is buried and the new me is ready to climb to new heights, just like the magic beans in the story “Jack and the Beanstalk”; I will be the ladder, the support that gives everyone a step up to a better life (without the outcome of it all tumbling down because of a giant monster!). Though I’m not yet ready to reveal my magic, it will come to no surprise to you that it has to do with education.

I have to preface this post with two important details: 1) I feel some guilt for living selfishly/for leaving a community of amazing teachers and students (not to mention my family) to pursue my own dreams in teaching; writing about it now feels boastful: I don’t want to rub anyone’s face in my new life….but I also know that you’re curious, and I hope to maybe inspire some of you to embark on a journey like this of your own!… 2) I have only been at my job for eight days–five of which were spent with staff, so only three with students; I know that every school and every job come with problems and challenges–and I promise to report on those as they accumulate.

Many of my students here don’t speak English as their first language, just like in the U.S. Many of my students here struggle with reading and writing skills, just like in the U.S. Many of them love sports more than school, wish vacation wasn’t over yet, haven’t found the-book-that-made-them-fall-in-love-with-reading (yet!), and need work on their vocabulary; they have busy parents, unmet needs, and bad habits, just like my beloved students in the U.S. The school has more of some things than it needs and not enough of other things, just like schools in the U.S.

Books awaiting their place on the library shelves.

Unlike the schools where I’ve taught in the U.S., this school does not have overcrowded classrooms, ancient textbooks or worn out materials. It does not have delapitating buildings, graffiti on the bathroom stalls, trash shoved into the heat registers, or bolts on the windows to keep students in and fresh air out.

Yet to be determined: if it has the same heart. (Love and miss you, Bulldogs!)

We also don’t have our own rooms here (in the high school) so that’s something I need to get used to. The internet is just about as reliable as I am used to….or maybe a little less so. I don’t have to spend my own money on classroom supplies: I can walk into a well-managed supply closet and ask the assistant to get me what I need and give them my number to document what I took. I don’t get to make my own copies: requests must be submitted–in Portuguese–well in advance.

The school’s leaders brought in a mindfulness instructor to lead the staff in meditation the first week of PD. Yes, they have the money to spend on our emotional well-being, though sitting quietly for an hour trying to clear our minds just days before students arrived may have been counter-productive. They feed us extraordinarily well. I’m talking better-than-Golden Corral, all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch every day. A freakin’ sushi buffet awaited as at the Happy Hour (on school grounds) after our first Friday PD.

Veteran teachers here warn us newbies of the “Freshman 15,” and I’m afraid they’re talking kilos (though no one will confirm this)! They serve one amazing dessert every day, and it’s highly recommended to try them all for the first semester, then choose your top-5 and only eat those if you want to maintain a shape other than a marshmallow. (I’ve started taking the stairs up to my 10th floor apartment to counterbalance all the eating.)

Of course, it’s not all glitz and glam….oh, was that already obvious? Haha…. I had sparkling illusions of living in the same apartment complex with all my expatriate colleagues where we would drop by one another’s units like dorms in college; some of us live roughly in the same neighborhood. The bus we all ride to school in together is broken into cliques just like the schoolbus of my childhood, and often nearly empty on the way home: not quite the fraternizing community I anticipated. The worst part about the bus is that the driver allegedly smokes cigarettes on it all day, then covers up the smell with an Olympic-size swimming pool’s worth of air freshener before we get on it, which makes many of us victim to daily headaches. Cruising over the hills of Sao Paulo on a bus with a headache is not my idea of a good time, but this is honestly the worst part of my day, so I’m dealing. 🙂

Each time I finish going through a stack of assignments I feel like I’m back at Westy High where only half of my students turned their work in regularly–then I realize that all of my students did turn their work in and that I only have 17 students in that class, and, yes, I am done grading the assignment already. So I breathe, and am thankful. I know that I’m going to have a lot of work cut out for me: I have four preps, two of which are brand-new, and one of which is an IB (International Baccalaureate) course. I also have a new language to learn before I feel comfortable on the streets here. But I also know that I have landed myself a pretty sweet gig for a couple of years, and I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it!

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Jillian. Jill. Jilly. Jilly Bean. Bean. It helped that I was all legs and full of energy. String Bean, Bouncing Bean. I liked keeping secrets but I loved to spill the beans. Bean Carries On is my garden. A place to cultivate thoughts about the things I care about. I’m a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a teacher, a gardener, a reader, an artist, a cook, and an empath.

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About the Author

Jillian. Jill. Jilly. Jilly Bean. Bean. And like a seed in soil, "Bean" stuck. Bean Carries On is my garden. A place to cultivate thoughts about the things I care about. I’m a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a teacher, a gardener, a reader, an artist, a cook, and an empath. I want this to be a place where we can learn together, so please leave comments and if there's anything you want to know, please ask!